In the wake of yesterday’s Kassam rocket attack on Ashkelon – the second in as many days – the IDF has expanded its activities into northern Gaza, in order to end the Kassam rocket fire.The media are reporting that the IDF have killed 11 palestinians in the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahia this afternoon, bringing the death toll to 17 since the start of operations in northern Gaza last night. But if you read deeper than the headlines, it becomes apparent that only one of these casualties was a civilian.
Ynetnews quotes IDF officials who state unequivocally that all the strikes were aimed at terrorists, and 20 Palestinian gunmen have been killed since operation “Summer Rains” was first launched last week.
Despite the low count of civilian deaths, the UN Human Rights Council adopted an Arab-sponsored resolution to send a fact-finding mission to report back urgently on “alleged rights violations by Israel.”
Meanwhile, Israeli police today arrested five more senior Hamas officials in East Jerusalem, and the remand of the five Hamas detained officials arrested last week was extended by eight days.
In other news, Gilad Shalit’s father has done the natural, fatherly thing by calling on Israel to free palestinian security prisoners jailed in Israel in exchange for the release of his son.
Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)
11:20PM: 7 Kassams have been fired towards Sderot since this afternoon.
10:45PM: By the way, Zubeidi is the terrorist with whom Israeli Janeane Garofalo lookalike Tali Fahima was very chummy.
9:55PM: Now Ha’aretz is reporting that Zubeidi did escape.
9:40PM: The IDF soldier killed earlier was 21-year old Yehuda Bassel. 21 years old. Isn’t that the drinking age in the US? And here in Israel, we have these young men fighting to defend people like me.
G-d bless Yehuda. And condolences to his family.
9:35PM: Of course, the palestinians are saying that Zubeidi evaded our forces.
9:20PM: Israeli television reports that we have killed senior Fatah terrorist Zakaria Zubeidi in Jenin .
7:30PM: An IDF soldier has been killed by terrorist snipers.
